Profile of a Chinese Pipe Smoker: Old Gan
-
Kevin Godbee - Jul 10, 2013
- 7 min read
A. Miller
Running a small and quiet bar next to a lake in the northernmost part of the city is an averaged sized vegetarian man in his sixties. Old Gan (as his friend’s call him) is the earliest pipe smoker I’ve met in Southwest China, having partaken of the hobby for close to twenty years. When asked if he really is the oldest pipe smoker in town he makes sure to spend a good bit of time telling me of the people in villages who have been smoking home-grown and hand-cured tobacco from pipes for hundreds of years in China. But that said, he believes himself to be one of the area’s earliest smokers of a Western-style pipe and imported tobacco. Before pipes he was a cigarette smoker but then made the switch when he heard pipe tobaccos lacked the chemical additives so common in cigarettes.
A little while back I stumbled upon the bar when I noticed the sign on the door said "Tobacco" in English with a transliterated version of the same in Chinese and showed a picture of a Mayan pipe smoker. The lone man sitting at a table in the dark red-brick room had on a baseball hat, tennis shoes, and a t-shirt. He had a nicely groomed beard and was smoking a silver-banded Peterson pipe. The bar was filled with little-known single malt whiskeys and even the beer cooler had an excellent selection of very non-Chinese beers. The whole get-up was so out of place that I approached him speaking English, assuming this must be a foreigner running the bar. "Excuse me sir are you the owner? This is a fancy place. Hello?" Once I was about three feet away he finally spoke up in Chinese, "I’m sorry, I hear you, but I have no idea what you’re saying."
Upon realizing our common language was not English, and was actually more related to briar and the fragrant weed, we quickly became friends. He showed me pictures of his travels around the country in his Jeep Wrangler visiting famous sites as well as remote monasteries.
Today I’m visiting again and we’re arguing over tobacco blends while he shows me his nearly $800 Kai Nielson sandblasted billiard. He owns more than ten pipes but only keeps five in his regular rotation. While with me, he smokes three straight bowls in this Kai Nielson without waiting for it to cool, so he either knows little about pipe maintenance or he’s a serious fan of the pipe. But it doesn’t take me long to suspect it’s not from lack of knowledge as the man clearly knows his stuff.
A little while later I’m pressing him on his favorite tobacco. On the table he has Nightcap and London Mixture, and while he has mentioned repeatedly he’s a fan of Latakia, I’m having a hard time understanding the word for the blend he’s trying to communicate. He keeps repeating the word, then writing down the character and I’m stuck with my dictionary definition of "Old Palm." He pulls out a Chinese copy of Searching for Pipe Dreams and then The Pipe Bible and looks for the brand but can’t find it. Finally I google the Chinese, and then laugh for not guessing. As a die hard Latakia fan I should have easily guessed Penzance takes the crown for his palate. Though admittedly I figured he wouldn’t have access to something so hard to get from here. He tells me he was able to get around 30 grams (or about 1oz) for close to $50, "Well worth it," he smiles.
Back when he first started smoking a pipe, imported tobacco was purchased exclusively on the black market. I press a bit about what this means and he reminds me probably all the tobacco I’ve ever bought here was purchased on the black market as well. But Penzance was something he had to work especially hard to find.
Old Gan tells me he doesn’t think pipes are specific to the wealthy but rather are specific to the cultured, and artsy people in China. Although he admits the poor would likely not have to time to be cultured or consider much in the art world. The pipe, he says, belongs to that unique class of people with the time and need for deep thought. This is particularly pointed as when he finishes talking with me he’ll frequently sit with me in complete silence for thirty minutes at a time.
Right now however, I’m not interested in silence but in the responses he gets from locals to smoking a pipe. As a strange looking foreigner I never know if I’m gettting looks for my pipe, my unusual clothes, my red beard, or something else. Old Gan tells me everyone knows what a pipe is and therefore no one wonders too much about it until they smell the room note of whatever he’s smoking. That’s when they notice something is different. They want to know what he’s smoking, what the pipe is made out of, how it’s made etc… And this is how he has introduced many friends to the hobby, at times selling both pipes and tobacco in his bar.
Then this reminds me of one thing I’ve always wondered about, the Chinese word for smoking without inhaling. Directly translated it means something like "to draw on fake smoke." This only makes him laugh, it is sort of fake smoking isn’t it? But then, he argues, you get all the flavor in your mouth so why inhale?
There have been several things that have led me to suspect Old Gan is the man I should be talking to about pipes in the city. He claims to have taught more than three hundred men (and women, including his daughter) to smoke a pipe. He also ran a local pipe club chapter for three years in his bar. But today he removes any doubt I may have had about his authority on the subject when I ask about Chinese-made tobacco. It turns out a local tobacco cutting factory, generally exclusively producing cigarettes, decided they wanted to try their hand at pipe tobacco. The company reverse-engineered a foreign pipe tobacco and put together a product to try out. Then figured Old Gan was the very man to test it. They came to him knowing he was a regular smoker of imported tobaccos and could give an honest and trustworthy opinion. Unfortunately for the company, and perhaps fortunately for the market in China, his opinion was so negative and his reaction so strong the company scrapped the idea altogether. At first I’m a bit taken aback; as mellow of a man as he is, it’s difficult for me to imagine him worked up in a way that would discourage a large company from moving forward with such a product. But even as he tells me the story I see the fire, or perhaps I should say fury, in his eyes over what he perceives as the butchering of something he very much loves.
While it somewhat excites me that the local companies are even attempting real pipe tobacco, Old Gan tells me he personally has no hope of there ever being a quality pipe tobacco from China. "You can’t even talk about the history of the West without mentioning tobacco," he says, arguing the West produces good tobacco because of it’s long history. And he fears the desire to cut corners is too strong in China for there to ever be hope for a quality local product.
Here’s a bowl to hoping he’s wrong.
Next he pulls out a tin of McClelland Blackwoods Flake he wants to share with me. I’ve never actually smoked a McClelland blend as I’ve always been afraid I might dislike the so called ‘Ketchup Smell.’ But this affords me a good opportunity for a free sample. I tell him many Westerners liken the tin aroma to ketchup, and he laughs hysterically, bringing it up at least twice more during my time there. When I press him on how he’d describe it he merely says he always thought it strange, but never found something so suitable as the analogy to tomato sauce. Nevertheless he loves this particular blend and I’m quite impressed myself with the depth and mild nature of this flake. The ‘Ketchup smell’ may be prevalent, but it hasn’t stopped McClelland from being enjoyed in China.
The final topic of our discussion is drink pairings. Many of the Chinese I have known like to share their opinion about what is good to be imbibed, when, and with what. As an all day smoker, Old Gan drinks red tea throughout the day and switches to whiskey at night. He insists green tea cannot be enjoyed with a pipe (apparently a mistake I’ve made regularly). He also says that while whiskey is suitable, beer should never be paired with a pipe. These choices are understandable given red tea and whiskey’s natural smokiness, and his love of Latakia. But I can’t decide if I enjoy both green tea and beer with my pipe because I’m more of a Virginia smoker, or simply because I’m not wealthy enough to be exclusive in my enjoyment of the finer things in life.
We both pack our pipes and finish our tea, then he insists on some whiskey, and who am I to say no? In China we don’t need an excuse like it being five o’clock somewhere, just good company, and a good pipe.
Written by Kevin Godbee
More Pipes and Tobaccos Articles
19 Responses
Smokingpipes.com Updates
12 Fresh Estate Pipes |
9 Fresh Ashton Pipes |
48 Fresh Ropp Pipes |
New Cigars |
24 Fresh Rossi Pipes |
Recent Posts
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 636. Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with Barry Kane. Barry started smoking a pipe in 1961 when he was 14-years old. Back then it seemed like everybody smoked, and you could buy pipes and tobacco just about anywhere. Barry is a true old-school pipe smoker, sticking to just one blend. See if you can guess which one before listening. At the top of the show Brian will give his take on Scandinavian Tobacco Group’s purchase of Mac Baren and Sutliff Tobacco and their announcement that they will be shut down.
There’s a pipe in my collection that I cannot bring myself to smoke, though I’ve had it for more years than I care to recall. It’s old, or shall I say, well experienced; that experience, that oldness came to it long before it was in my possession. The pipe is an old Comoy’s Grand Slam from the 1940s. The shape (#93), a slightly canted, stack billiard (sometimes referred to as a Belgian) is right up my alley, and it’s a beautiful example of it. It came to me with some wear and tear; nothing unusual for an old pipe, but more the signs of one that has been well loved, smoked a lot, treated as a favorite tool, cherished, in a sense, by frequent use. It’s the pipe equivalent of a vintage car that’s been driven a lot, enjoyed fully and maintained adequately, rather than one kept in a spotless garage, dusted and detailed weekly, brought out only for leisurely Sunday drives, or to be ogled behind the ropes at the next Concours d’Elegance. When it arrived, those uncounted years ago, it wanted a little restoration. Nothing dramatic needed to be done to it, but the stem was oxidized, the finish a little dingy. The cake was even and fairly thin, and the airway was relatively clean, both signs that its previous owner cared for it, but the bowl’s surface was a little drab and dull. It took little effort to reveal its beauty, to show the lovely contrasted stain and interesting grain beneath the old wax. I often think I should do before and after photos of pipes that I work on, but those thoughts always come after the work’s been done. This one would have been a great illustration of how years of handling that can sometimes make a pipe more beautiful, can other times make it just look grungy. Once I’d cleaned up the externals, it was time to address the inside bits. I approach this a little bassackwards, I realize. It would be more sensible to take care of the inside before addressing the outside, but it’s how I roll. If an old pipe isn’t pretty to look at, it’s unlikely that I’ll care much about it, and cleaning is usually the hardest part, or at least the most boring part of any restoration for me. Alcohol and pipe cleaners. Lots of pipe cleaners. That’s why I leave it for last. Sometimes, I’ll even give a pipe a test smoke before a deep cleaning, just for a point of reference. I gave it a sniff to get an idea of what I was up against, and it stopped me cold. There in that bowl was an aroma that I had not smelled in decades. My head was instantly filled with memories of being in the back room of a fabled Berkeley tobacconist’s shop where I stumbled upon a few jars of long discontinued blends. One of them, a blend called Forty and Eight, had the most engaging and unusual scent of any tobacco I’d stuck my schnoz into. It was sweet, but not in a candy store way. There were none of the usual vanilla, cherry, berry or anise notes of typical aromatics, nothing that could be compared to aftershave or deodorant soap, but something almost musky, a little earthy, something exotic. The shop’s owner couldn’t tell me what was in it, how, or where it had been produced. The old blend had been retired before he’d bought the place. The printed catalogue gave no clues, either, other than being overprinted with the word “DISCONTINUED” in bold, rubber-stamp type. (And, I don’t recall it as being “highly aromatic” as the description indicates.) There was still quite a bit in the jar. Being, at that point, an intrepid explorer of all kinds of tobaccos, whether I thought I’d like them or not, I had to give it a try. It was burly based, but also comprised a good measure of virginia leaf, and maybe some other varieties; I didn’t have enough experience at the time to really pick it apart. But, that aroma was unlike anything I’d experienced before or since. It was something now completely lost to time. Until it wasn’t. Memories are powerful things, and there is no sense more tightly bound to memory than our sense of smell. One whiff was all it took to carry me back in time, conjuring a vivid recollection of something long submerged in the inky depths of a subconscious mind. Look, I know as well as anyone that pipes are meant to be smoked, and that many feel it almost sacrilegious to have a pipe and not set it to its intended task. In this case, I simply can’t. I won’t. Ever. Rationally, I am fairly certain this pipe would probably be a great smoke. It was too well loved by its previous caretaker to be anything less than that. My choice not to smoke it is an emotional one, not something rational. Of the thousands of pipes that have passed through my hands over the years, this is the only one to create such a singular and vivid, almost Proustian recollection of temps perdu, of lost time. It revivified a long dormant memory that is mine, and mine alone, and that’s enough. I keep it in a drawer with other old English pipes. In some ways, it’s nothing special, just a nice old pipe. I don’t lavish it with any particular care that arguably befits the hidden treasure that it holds. It’s not in a special box, or displayed preciously in a glass cabinet. Every once in a while, I take it out, point my nose bowlwards, and every time, those memories return just as powerfully as they did the first time. I have no idea how long it’s been since its last owner smoked it, but in the years I’ve had it, there seems to have been very little degradation of the aroma, and that’s […]
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 635. Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with James Ravenwood. James is the boutique tobacco blender of Ravenwood Blends. His blending started out as a fun hobby, and he now has professionally packaged commercially available products with some great tin art. Part of his interest in pipe smoking goes back to fond memories of a retired Navy Veteran that lived on his street while he was growing up that would sit in his driveway smoking a pipe all day. Later, in 2011 he began smoking pipes and soon after started experimenting with mixing different tobaccos. His other hobby, that he has been doing for 30 years, is photography. He takes wonderful photos of outdoor spaces, and still life pictures of pipes and tobacco. You can see them on his Instagram @thebriarfellowship. At the top of the show we’ll have an Ask the Pipemaker segment with renowned pipe artisan Jeff Gracik.
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 634! Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with Warren Ertle. Warren is an extremely accomplished musician with a PhD in music. He started early as a percussionist in sixth grade. Later his grandmother got him a cheap Casio keyboard which he taught himself to play. He started playing in blues bands in high school, and has been a pianist with jazz big bands for years. Even though he was already a professional musician, he took his first real piano lesson when he enrolled in college with his studies in classical music. He is of course a pipe smoker. At the top of the show we will have an Ask the Tobacco Blender segment with Jeremy Reeves. Jeremy is the Head Blender at Cornell & Diehl, which is one of the most popular boutique pipe tobacco companies in the USA.
Soon now, supposedly, our neighborhoods will shift from grinning pumpkins, skeletons in various assortments, and zombies dashing about to pretty reindeer, angels, and flashing lights illuminating homes with sparkling stars and laughing, scurrying Santas. But, lest we forget, there is the turkey season, fancy pie aromas wafting from kitchens, and a national pardon of a big Tom Turkey. Remember, now, that only one of these holiday personalities is a pipe smoker. And that is the hefty, bearded fellow in a bright red suit sitting in a sleigh with a herd of deer hitched up and ready to streak across the globe, bringing tidings of joy and many presents. Ok, the scene is set for the next couple of months, right? So, before we get too far off the beaten path, let’s just take a deep breath of fresh autumn air, shall we? Ahh. That’s better, isn’t it? What’s got the Pundit in a snit is not all the Halloween spooks who came a-jostling for candy. Or the wild turkeys gobbling in the backwoods or all the fuss and feathers over the big one—Christmas. No, it is that we might need to take note of all the little things that mean so much to us. Like a good sunrise (seriously, Pundit has not gone all Pollyanna.) Mayhaps we need to appreciate more of what we have than what we have not. Or something like that. Like, a good pipe in the morning with coffee as the dawn brings us coolish weather now that we have flipped the calendar to autumn. But it also brings beautiful leaves that have become a spectacle of technicolor in the wind. It is the little things. The rereading of an enjoyable book and finding something you did not see or learn in the first go-round. Or a stunning phrase you commit to memory with the re-read, while smoking that favorite pipe. And you notice a superior puff that just seems to be different. It’s in the air and the seasons of meaningful little things. It’s aromatic! Or perhaps it is that sense of satisfaction knowing and appreciating you made it to another day. With the world in a kind of rinse-and-repeat history, reminiscent of a Shakespearean play, it is perhaps a good moment to remember some of Pipedom’s philosophers whose cogent thoughts brought light to clear a path in the mists of confusion and confounding opinions. Ok. No gloom and doom. Just some down-home thoughts. Think of times in the past when history was running off the rails. It took our pipe-smoking thinkers (the mind workers of the world) to speak of better pathways to more light. Think for a moment, with a pipe in hand, these wizards of the world and word: Albert Einstein, J. R.R. Tolkien, Mark Twain, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Edwin Hubble, Bertrand Russell, C. S. Lewis, and Jean-Paul Sartre. All learned and enlightened. They offered wisdom instead of storms of meaningless roads to nowhere. All while smoking their pipes! Maybe especially with the help of their pipes in the art of thinking and philosophy. Recall the words of Mr. E=MC2 when he said, “I believe that pipe smoking contributes to a somewhat calm and objective judgment in all human affairs.” Amen and amen! Dealing with world-rattling events takes a calm and objective view of things, to the Pundit’s way of summing it up. You just don’t go messing around with quantum physics without a calm and objective approach, methinks. Or as the extraordinary physicist Robert Oppenheimer said after he and a team in the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos Labs developed a way to split atoms into bombs during World War II. “I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds,” said Oppenheimer referring to the development of the first nuclear bombs dropped on Japan. It must be pointed out that Oppenheimer was more of a cigarette smoker than a pipe smoker. Nonetheless, pipes were part of his personality. Now, if you have read some of the great authors of the past and present, their pipes were always nearby. Reading Sir Arthur Conan Doyle can be a three-pipe problem at times. S. Lewis and Jean-Paul Sartre require time with your pipes to reflect on the existential problems and solutions these authors provide in learned novels and other narratives. Or take Edwin Hubble and Bertrand Russell, philosophers of another world. Pipes are required for reading. The quantum lode of ideas Pundit is attempting to sort out is that our pipes are relaxing and stimulate our thoughts and creativity. Especially in these last months of the year. Many times Pundit has had that light bulb flick on while smoking my beloved pipes. And friends in Pipedom, it ain’t easy to turn on the lights in Pundit’s rock pit head. Now it’s time for a quote from a Pipe Smoker of the Past. Shelby Foote was born Nov. 17, 1916, in Greenville, Miss., and died June 27, 2005, in Memphis, Tenn. A fact is not a truth until you love it—Shelby Foote. A parting thought: It is said that famed Southern author William Faulkner carried a packed pipe in a coat pocket wherever he went. That’s one effective way to deal with workday conflicts and confusion. A calm and objective judgment in our everyday human affairs, as the quantum man said.
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 633. Our featured guest tonight is Jon David Cole. JD is the Owner/Tobacconist at The Country Squire in Jackson, MS, and the accompanying online store. We’ll have JD and Brian talking about what’s new at the store and in the business in general. At the top of the show, Brian will discuss tobacco growing, what happens to the leaf, and provide updated information on where tobacco is being gown today. Tobacco production originated in the United States and we were once the #1 producer. It’s quite different now.
Wow great article.
Great article, interesting man. Not what you’d expect to find in China – if I had to guess, I’d say he might be located in Hangzhou, one of my favourite cities in China.
Thanks for posting this – looking forward to more!
Whoops, sorry, you did say SW China.
Wonderful article, makes me miss my time in SEA.
That was great – lots of fun.
A great article. A humble man of high tastes, and a follower of the Penzance to boot. He’s right of course, black tea goes with pipe leaf much better than green tea. That’s been my experience as well. With the recent surge in high grade pipes in China, I wouldn’t be surprised if some entrepreneurs don’t develop some high grade pipe tobaccos. Perhaps Mr. Pease can find a consulting gig in China to set them on the straight and narrow. The more the merrier I say.
A dedicated lover of our hobby. I can’t imagine what it was like trying to find nice pipes and good tobacco in China 20-30 years ago. And the cost? Wow. Penzance at $50 an ounce? Interesting gentleman. Great story.
Thanks for an eye opening glimpse of an (apparently) poorly understood culture.
Great read
Very interesting read. I’m really glad I fell upon this. Quick question for the author though, I’m currently residing in China, and would really like to know where Old Gan’s bar is located so I can head there before I head back home. If you could get back to me on this it would be greatly appreciated!
@drebabylive the bar is located in Kunming in 北市区 off of 北辰大道 in 月牙塘 across from the lake.
Perfect! Thanks for the information, greatly appreciated!
Compared to this pipe smoker, my dozen years of smoking are dwarfed! I’d love to spend an afternoon listening to him talk.
Enjoyed that story. Great insight into an awesome pipe adventure.
Very interesting article. Good smoke with a new friend.
Great read…thanks.
Great read. It is nice to see how a language barrier can be surmounted by a common interest and passion for pipe smoking and simple pleasures.
I have to say I am glad someone else in this world knows of the benefits of Royal Lochnagar! It is one of the many components of Johnny Walker Black Label. I however almost always drink single Malts and Royal Lochnagar is a very smooth and subtle one.
Well done sir!
What a rare & unique experience. Thanks for sharing, I’m sure this is a memory you’ll cherish.